Gospel Lectio Divina for The Fifth Sunday of Easter - May 7, 2023
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.
O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.
READ
Jesus said to his disciples: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way." Thomas said to him, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him." Philip said to him, "Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father."
MEDITATE
“In my Father's house there are many dwelling places”
There are two ways I can read these words of Jesus, one positive and one negative. I will start with the negative way. When I think of a house I think of four walls, and if there are walls there are limitations. I don’t like limitations. When I think of heaven, I think of infinity and eternity, a place where there are no walls because we don’t have to be protected. I also don’t like this verse because I don’t want God to prepare a place for me. I want to create a place for myself. What if I live a life for Christ, get to heaven, and find out the place he has prepared for me already in his Father’s house is not to my liking? I can say, “Jesus, I trust in you” all I want, but if I was created to do his will only to have him determine how and where I’m going to spend the rest of eternity, where is the freedom in that?
Now here is the positive way to read these words: God does want us to be free. He doesn’t want us to just do his will like well-trained pets who will get a treat at the end of life if we do what we are told. God is everything we are after. He is the object of every desire. I imagine that heaven will provide many places to explore, more than enough to content my rambling heart for all of eternity. This is why Jesus often talks about inheritance. We are not supposed to just sit on our inheritance. We are supposed to use it to accomplish something greater. The saints are in heaven continuing their work in much more effective ways than they ever could have here on earth. They’re not just lazily laying back and enjoying an eternal retirement in their room in the Father’s house. They may have golf outings every now and then if that’s their thing–but they’re not limited by time so they can continue to intercede for us even while playing golf. It’s probably just a matter of pushing a button on the new smartphone God gave them when they entered the pearly gates. OK, I think I’ve officially gone too far.
The point is, as much as I want to think of heaven as a place without limitations, I also like to think there will be a place there that I can call home. The journey of exploring truth, goodness, and beauty does not end when we reach heaven–and every expedition needs a base. It’s good to know, then, that God is preparing a place for us to call our own where we can also be with him. Knowing very well the creative nature he gave all of us though, he’d probably be okay with us customizing our room in his house as well.
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
This is a validation of the Incarnation’s mysteries: Christ being both God and man, and the Father being one with the Son. We cannot understand this, and the disciples did not understand it, because our human minds do not commingle opposites. We distinguish opposites because we perceive limitations. Hot cannot be cold. Up cannot be down. Left cannot be right. But God has no limitations. He can be both God and man. Apart from the mystery of these two opposites–god and man–being one in Christ, there is the mystery of the Father and the Son both being God. It is not enough to say that Jesus–although a man–is also God. The mystery of the Incarnation is also in the truth that–while the Father is God and the Son is God–the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father.
So that begs the question. Why does Jesus say “Whoever has seen the Father has seen me”? It’s because Jesus not only enjoys sonship with and in the Father; he has also successfully lived out his Father’s will.
We live in a world where it is customary to put limitations on our experiences. It makes sense to do so. Distinguishing one thing from another helps us understand the world. We categorize things and then organize those categories. It helps us bring order and peace to our lives the best way we know how. But God does not work like that. We are fascinated by his designs when we look up to the heavens or into a microscope and see how beautifully ordered his entire creation is. But even then we are only scratching the surface of it all. God, the mastermind behind the universe, has designs that we’ve never encountered. He has ways of ordering things that would look like chaos if he revealed them to us now in our fallen state, because–as intelligent as we may think we are–our minds are actually very feeble and incapable of processing all aspects of God’s grand design.
What am I trying to get at here? The mystery of the Incarnation is a mystery because it consists of divine designs beyond our comprehension. Nevertheless, we know the mystery is true because of the way Jesus lived. We know he was one with the Father because of how perfectly he lived out the Father’s will. Yet, we know he was also his own person because he struggled with human nature just like all of us (remember the 40 days in the desert and the Agony in the Garden). So, Jesus and the Father are one, but not in the same way our body and spirit are one.
Why is the mystery of the Incarnation so important to at least try to understand? Because we base a good part of our world on the concept. On our money, we see the words "e pluribus unum", which means, essentially, "out of many, we became one." Even though we see unity and separation as opposites, we acknowledge the need to sometimes unite what is separate and separate what is united. The 50 states of the union unite to show strength but remain separate to show their freedom.
In the same way, it is important to remember that Jesus had his own free will, but in that free will he decided to unite himself with the Father.
PRAY
Dear Lord,
You always provide, and I must have faith that you will give believers everything they truly dreamed of once they reach heaven. You are one with the Father, but you also struggled with human nature and know the limitations we face here on earth. You feel our pain. In fact, you probably feel it more than us because you know how far from heaven we have fallen, but how close we could be to God if we just came to you. Help me come to you. If you call me out on the water, I will follow. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
LISTEN
Many of the sayings of Jesus are hard to understand, and I’ll admit I’m taken aback by some of them. Some of the things he says are challenging. They challenge us to see things differently, which is good. It’s good because it’s a reminder that life and the world have knocked us off track. When something Jesus says does not line up with my own values, I can know that it’s because my experiences–and the way I perceive them–have caused me to see the world and life in ways that are not right and true. Listening to Jesus’ word sets me back on track. But sometimes listening requires a little extra effort, more than just skimming through the words and getting the superficial meaning. Some of the realities Jesus is teaching us lie beneath the surface. He has a reason for putting them there: It’s to teach us patience and to help us get in touch with our spiritual side.
Kilby is a freelance writer from New Jersey and managing editor of Catholic World Report. He received his undergrad degree in humanities and Catholic culture from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. In addition to working with the Knights of the Holy Eucharist (knights.org), he has served as a journalist for Princeton Packet Publications, and the Trenton Monitor, the magazine for the Diocese of Trenton. Some of his published work can also be found in St. Anthony Messenger, Catholic Herald (UK), and Catholic World Report. For the latter he is managing editor. Find more of his writing at ramblingspirit.com.
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